How can I return Pass/Fail marks?
- Ian Shaw (Unlicensed)
- Michael Hughes
This page describes how to set up the gradebook to return a Pass / Fail mark to marks return while showing the students their numerical marks as usual. P/F will only show in Pegasus.
The marks return system can accept pass/fail marks as well as numerical results.
Just return the single capital letter P or F.
NB - there are not mark codes! Enter the letter as a 'mark'.
You can also return a mark code if you need to.
Only P or F should be returned, not Pass or Fail!
Instructions
Step 1 - Go to the Gradebook setup
From the class page, click on Gradebook setup in the Administration block.
Step 2 - Create a hidden grade item
Scroll to the bottom of the screen and click Add grade item.
In the form, give the new grade item a name. Here I have used Pass/Fail but you can name it anything.
Below that, set the Grade type to Scale and the scale to Mark return 50% Pass/Fail. The 50% is a reminder that this scale will default to 50/50 - see below.
Tick the box to make the grade item hidden.
Finally, Save changes.
If you want to manually set P/F grades, this is all the setup you need. Just go to the grader report and click in the box under your hidden grade item - you will get a drop-down menu that allows you to set P or F for each student in turn.
However, if you have a large class which has already been marked numerically and you want to set the grade item to P/F based on these marks, you will have to set up a calculation. Follow the steps below.
Default: 50%
Be aware that the default split of a scale item is 50/50 - so by default the pass mark will be 50%. This may not be what you want!
Step 3 - Set the calculation to reflect the final mark
On the Gradebook setup screen, find the grade item you have created, click Edit, then click Edit calculation.
First of all, find the column which contains the mark you want to interpret as P or F.
You'll need to give it a name. In this case the class total is the final result, so it is being labelled. The label in this example is 'mark' but any label that makes sense will work.
Scroll to the bottom and click Add ID Numbers.
Here you can see the 'mark' label has been added.
In the calculation box, enter the formula:
=if([[mark]]>=40, 2, 1)
If you used a different label to 'mark', change it in the formula.
This formula sets the pass mark at exactly 40. You might prefer it to be 39.5 if your department policy is to round up - you can change the number.
Don't change the 2 or 1 - that refers to the P and F results.
Save changes when you are ready and check the results in the Grader report.
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